Chapter 10

10

E llen felt an unfamiliar stirring in her stomach. She didn't usually get nervous around Travis, but those were definitely butterflies in her stomach. Of course, she hadn't been around Travis for five years, so she really didn't know exactly how she felt around him normally.

She hoped this wasn't the new way. She didn't like it. But there was something new about Travis, well, a lot of new things. He had definitely matured, both in his personality and physically. Jan had said that his shoulders had broadened, and that wasn't the least of it. He had a man's face, and his eyes held knowledge and competence that matched his confident bearing.

He had been a teenager she admired and had turned into a man she could love.

She tried to shake that thought from her head. He hadn't hinted at feeling anything more than friendship with her. He'd been so insistent on it when they parted before that she was kind of scared to cross that line. For now, maybe she'd just wait and hope he did. Wait and enjoy the relief she felt that he hadn't bought Shanna's lunch because he wanted to.

That was the best thing she heard all night.

It made it difficult to keep the smile off her face.

"Keep an eye on Atlas. I have to go to the bathroom and change this diaper." Shanna spoke as she walked by, barely glancing at them as she strode toward the community center.

Obviously she was upset because Travis's attention wasn't completely on her. Ellen felt a little bad about that. She hadn't meant to take Travis away. Travis was spending his time where he wanted to, and that probably upset Shanna just as much as anything.

Ellen couldn't blame her; she would be disappointed if Travis was giving all of his attention to Shanna. But she hoped that she could be mature enough to step back and allow Travis to make the decision about who he wanted to be with without her getting angry and upset about it.

After all, getting angry and upset wasn't going to change his mind. It might make him be a little nicer to her, just because he felt bad, but she wouldn't want that either. Wouldn't want him to be afraid of her anger and change what he was doing just because he was afraid of it.

"Travis?" A woman's voice, unsure and a little shaky, made Ellen turn and look.

A brunette, a little younger than Ellen, holding a baby in her arms, stood off to the side, as though afraid to interrupt.

Ellen's eyes shot to Travis. Did he know this woman?

There was no recognition in his eyes as he spoke. "Are you looking for me?"

"Are you Travis Feagley?"

His brows scrunched forward a bit as he nodded his head. "Yes?"

The woman swallowed hard, the movement making the tattooed flowers around her throat seem to shake their leaves. Then she moved a little closer, and Ellen peeked at the bundle in her arms, snuggled down so only its face was showing, the delicate lashes resting against soft cheeks and the face totally relaxed in sleep. She was no judge of babies, but she'd been around her brother and sister enough to know that this baby was…very young. Maybe not even six weeks old.

"I was with your brother Roger."

The woman waited, seeming to want Travis to respond somehow to that. He jerked his head up.

"This is his kid."

Ellen blinked. She had no idea that Roger had a child. Nor even a girlfriend for that matter. He had been troubled as a teen, but Travis had never given up on him, constantly offering him a position, asking him to help, pushing him to do something constructive with the interests that he had.

Travis had spent a lot of time talking to her about Roger over the years, his concerns for his brother, his hopes and dreams that both of his brothers would work together with him, and Ellen had thought that Roger finally came around the last few years. In fact, he had been in Brazil with Travis and had stayed down when Travis left.

But, as Ellen counted back, it had only been eight months since Roger had gone down.

She assumed Travis was doing the same calculations in his head. And came to the conclusion that the baby very well could be Roger's.

"I didn't know he had a child." His voice was soft, gentle, as though he were deliberately keeping his emotions in check so as not to scare the woman in front of him who looked frightened as a church mouse.

"I can't keep it. You need to take it."

She held the baby tight for a moment, and then as though she needed to do it quickly, she shoved her arms out, pushing the baby at Travis's chest.

His arms came around it, almost automatically, and she dropped away, backing up.

"Don't tell nobody," she said.

"Don't leave. Tell me about…him? Her? What's the baby's name?"

Ellen stepped closer to Travis and put a hand on his back, just lightly pressed there to let him know she was beside him. She could feel the panic welling up inside of him, could see that he was on the verge of chasing the woman down as she turned around. She couldn't blame him. This was quite a shock. Especially considering that he just got back into the country.

"It's Alice. That's the baby's name. A girl." She nodded at the bag she threw at Travis's feet. Ellen had barely noticed, but when she saw it, she reached down and picked it up. "There's a note in there along with everything else. Don't tell nobody," she said again.

"Are you in some kind of trouble?" Ellen asked, since that didn't seem to occur to Travis yet. She had assumed when the woman first handed the baby over that she couldn't afford a baby and was giving it to Travis. It might not be a well-known fact that he was a multimillionaire, but it was generally accepted around town that since he rubbed shoulders with Ford Hansen, he probably had money. Or he at least had access to someone who did.

But now, she wondered if the woman wasn't having different issues. If someone wasn't chasing her, or if maybe she was expecting to be arrested.

"I guess you could say that. Just take good care of her, okay?" Up until that point, the woman had seemed rather stiff and unemotional about the child, but when she asked for them to take care of the baby, her eyes filled with tears, and she took a deep breath, seeming to push them away.

"Of course we will," Ellen said immediately, feeling compassion well up inside of her. What could this woman possibly be dealing with that would make her give up her beloved baby?

"Maybe we can help you?" she added, forming it into a question, because she knew that the woman had already made up her mind to give up her baby and move on.

"No. It's best this way. I can't really afford her anyway, though…I love her."

"I'll make sure she knows that."

Ellen stared at the woman, wondering if she'd seen her before. But the tattoo wrapped around her neck, plus the sleeve tattoos she had on both arms, the double ring in her nose, and the cartilage piercing in her ear, while they weren't exactly unique anymore, they still made her rather distinctive, and Ellen was pretty sure that if she'd seen her before, she would remember it.

She was too young to be someone she had graduated with or even someone she had known in school. Sweet Water High was a small school, with less than a thousand students from kindergarten to twelfth grade.

Ellen couldn't say that she knew every single kid in school, but she knew most of them. Although maybe this woman was younger than what she looked.

"Do you need money?" Travis's words startled her.

She'd been so intent on trying to figure out the woman she'd almost forgotten he stood beside her holding the baby.

She should have thought the woman might need money.

"No. I just need my baby—Roger's baby—to be safe."

"She will be," Travis said with as much sincerity as she'd ever heard him use before. In fact, if the situation didn't feel so serious, Ellen would tease him a bit about falling in love with the baby at first sight. It was obvious he was smitten and that the baby had roused every protective instinct he owned, as he cradled her carefully, bending over just a little as though he would shield her from anything.

It was heartwarming to see, made her chest feel warm and shimmery and something else she'd never felt before, but it stirred in her soul clear down to her toes, and while she'd always admired Travis, she felt something more. Something stronger as she looked at him holding the tiny baby.

She supposed women through the ages had looked at men in the same way. Something about seeing a man holding a baby, and not just holding it, but holding it like they would face death itself in order to protect it, stirred every feminine cell she had and brought them to attention.

"You can keep in touch."

"I can't. I have to go."

They watched as she turned and hurried off, disappearing into the darkness.

"She doesn't even have a car," Ellen murmured.

"Maybe she just parked it a little ways away so we wouldn't see it and couldn't report her."

"Is it illegal to give someone a baby?" Ellen asked, thinking that it probably should be, although maybe not. Maybe it was better to do what this woman had done, to give her baby to someone she thought could take care of her, rather than abandon her completely. Or, worse yet, keep her but allow her to be abused.

No, Ellen had no doubt the woman loved the baby and thought she was doing the very best thing she could for her.

"I need to call Roger," Travis murmured.

"Are you two still standing there?" Shanna said, walking out with her baby held loosely on one hip.

Ellen had completely forgotten about Shanna. Although it wouldn't have surprised her, as angry as she seemed, if she would have walked back in and not come out again.

Travis would be honor bound to go in and get her, Ellen was sure, since he had bought her lunch bucket.

"You need to excuse me for a moment. I have a phone call to make," Travis said, barely looking at Shanna as he moved away.

Ellen almost offered to hold the baby, but it didn't look to her like Travis had any intention of giving her up. It was adorable, and she figured she could spend a lot of time just staring at him holding the little one, but he would probably appreciate her trying to appease Shanna more than her staring at him at the moment.

"Can I give you a hand with the kids and help get the food out on the table while he talks on the phone?"

"We're going to eat whether he does or not," Shanna snapped, grabbing the bucket from one end of the table, setting it down at the other, putting a child on the bench, and holding the other as she put first one leg and then the other over the side of the seat and sat down.

"You want me to go inside to get you drinks?" Ellen asked.

Shanna jerked her head up. "Shoot. I totally forgot about drinks."

"What would you guys like? I'll go and grab some. I don't think Travis will be long on the phone."

"He better not be. I want my money back. If I had known that he was going to completely ignore me, I wouldn't have been so interested in having him buy my meal."

Shanna had never been overly kind to her, but Ellen felt bad for her anyway. She could commiserate with that, even if she didn't blame Travis for not really wanting to spend a lot of time with her, not that he had much choice, since the night had been rather eventful. But it would hurt Shanna's feelings.

Knowing she was a poor substitute for Travis and Shanna didn't want her anyway, she hurried into the community building to grab some drinks.